Metabolic diseases such as cardio vascular diseases, diabetes and obesity are a worldwide pandemic with ˜382 million people affected by diabetes alone. Currently, there are limited drugs that are effective in combating diabetes. One approach is to hijack biological effects of circulating factors in blood to improve whole body metabolism. Factors such as FGF-21, irisin and adiponectin, which are secreted from the liver, muscles and adipose tissue, respectively, had been previously demonstrated to improve whole body metabolism by modulating various aspects of energy homeostasis.
Therefore, there is a need to identify new therapeutic targets for the treatment of metabolic related diseases.